The present invention relates generally to connector arrangements for accommodating a plurality of electrical connections associated with an electronic module and, in particular, to a header and housing assembly which facilitates the accomplishment of a plurality of electrical connections to an associated electronic device, while at the same time adequately protecting and shielding associated components mounted on a flex circuit module within the housing in such a manner as to maximize the utilization of available space.
There are many instances where, due to the miniaturization and portability of an electronic device, the relative density of the electrical components contained therein places a premium on the available space. Several miniaturized packaging arrangements for electronic discrete components in miniaturized electronic circuit modules which utilize custom headers are known in the art and have various disadvantages when compared with the present invention. Typically, each of the component leads have to be individually inserted into the respective aperture of the header structure. Similarly, component leads of differing geometrics will not properly fit within the header structure, or damage of such leads will result. Header structures found in the art differ for component leads which are keyed and component leads which are not keyed. Finally, the durability of the header structures found in the art do not facilitate reuse of a header structure repeatedly.
So-called flexible printed electronic circuitry of one sort or another has been incorporated in a wide variety of electrical and electronic devices. It is particularly advantageous, however, for use with miniaturized electronic apparatus where space is critical and bulky wire-to-wire connections are to be minimized or eliminated. Facilitating the multiple electrical connections required is generally accomplished through the use of plated through holes.
Portable, two-way communication equipment provides a particular advantageous application for printed circuitry in either flex or printed circuit board form. A single basic or master circuit board can be designed to retain the various required electronic components for the transmitter and receiver elements thereof, and laid out as to effect the various inner-circuit connections to make the apparatus as a whole functional, all within minimum space requirements and optimized efficiency. A disadvantage is that the printed circuit chassis board, once designed and laid out, is thereby fixed operationally and not readily adaptable to meet any additional or alternative operational features. For example, in portable two-way communications equipment, if tone-coded squelch operation is required or if automatic unit identification is to be effected upon interrogation from some centralized location, or if digital voice privacy is desired through coding or decoding options, then it would be expected that an entirely different chassis board would need to be designed so as to implement the desired electronic function in addition to the conventional transmit-and-receive operation of the equipment. It will be readily appreciated and apparent that this creates an added inventory burden, i.e., a different circuit board for each combination of operational capabilities, will increase costs unnecessarily, will be inefficient, inflexible and may very well impair reliability of the portable equipment.
Component lead alignment is critical for proper mating and ease of insertion, into the retention cavities of the header or respective pin openings in an associated printed circuit board. Prior art devices generally accomplish such alignment only with increased complexity of the device used.
A common disadvantage relating to all of the foregoing known prior art devices involves the relatively high cost, complexity and quantity piece parts which comprise the various packaging apparatus for a miniaturized electronic circuit module.